‘Can I finish a sentence?’
‘Who’s stopping you?’
‘You are, and you’d know that if you listened to yourself as much as you want other people to.’ She took in a deep breath, then continued, ‘All I’m saying is, yes, the man has flaws. We all do. But for some reason, you’ve got it in for him. You provoke him. Like you did back at the school.’
‘Back at the school?’
‘Yes.’
‘I provoked him?’
‘You were a bit harsh.’
‘He wanted my gun.’
‘He has a right to it, Jacob. A legal right. Hell, an obligation. And you challenged him on it, right in front of everyone. You gave him nowhere to go, no way out. Like you always do with anyone who so much as blocks your way.’
‘You saying I’m a bull in a China shop?’
‘More like a rampaging rhino.’ She let loose a soft laugh, then stopped talking for a moment, as if replaying the scene in her mind.
Striker held his tongue on this one. Because he had to. It was typical of Felicia to never leave anything be. She would just pick and pick and pick until there was nothing left. Sometimes, with her, it was better to let things go.
The light changed to green, and Striker drove south on Dunbar. When they crossed Forty-First Avenue, he reached down and made sure his gun was snug in its shoulder-holster. Just feeling the grip brought him a sense of calm. He gave Felicia a glance.
‘We’re getting close. Call for another unit — preferably plain-clothes. We’ll need them stationed out back in case this prick runs.’
Felicia got on her cell, called Dispatch, got a unit started up.
A few turns later, on Balsam Street, Striker killed the headlights and pulled over. The twilight was deepening, the dark sky purpling under the growing reaches of night and angry cloud. Striker stared through the darkness, thankful for the few streetlights that splattered the road.
Far down Balsam Street, at the end of the roundabout, stood a large, square, two-storey house. It was a modern special — made up of big dark windows and grey concrete walls — and front-lit only by the weak light of the streetlamps.
Striker pointed ahead to it. ‘That’s Quenton Wong’s residence, or at least where he’s listed as staying.’
‘What about Raymond Leung?’
‘Leung is an exchange student. Apparently, he lived with Quenton in his parents’ house.’ Striker shrugged. ‘That’s all I could get from Caroline.’
He pulled out his cell and called Information. After obtaining the telephone number for the residence, he called it, let the phone ring a dozen times, got no answer and hung up.
‘No one’s home,’ he said. ‘Or no one’s answering. No machine either.’
Felicia never took her eyes off the house. ‘No lights are on.’
‘Means nothing. God knows, if I was on the run, every light in the house would be off and I’d be as heavily armed as possible.’ He located the magazine release on his pistol, he pushed the button and slid out the mag, made sure it was topped up, then reloaded. He glanced down at Felicia’s chest, looking for a trauma plate bump.
‘You wearing?’
She rapped her knuckles over the centre of her chest, and it made a hard thunk! ‘Momma didn’t raise no fools.’
‘Good.’ Striker reached into the back seat and grabbed the shotgun. He racked it once, chambering a round, and gave Felicia a grave look.
‘Time for some people to face the Reaper.’
When backup was in place — all of them plainclothes units — Striker gave Felicia a nod and she drew her pistol. His palm felt wet, almost slippery now, and he tried to convince himself it was just the rain wetting his skin. But he knew better. And all at once, it felt like he was heading back into the cafeteria again to battle the three gunmen.
Tactically, the situation was a nightmare. Two cops with forty cals and one shotgun. They had no distraction or dark-light devices, just a couple of Maglites and the flashlights attached to their guns. On that note Felicia had been right. The Emergency Response Team could handle this takedown better, especially if machine guns and shotguns became the weapons of choice.
But ERT needed time, and that was the one luxury they couldn’t afford. As far as Striker was concerned, time didn’t even exist any more. Not in a normal state. Everything was just one big rush before the next shooting.
He snuck down the sidewalk, shotgun in hand. It was loaded with ten gauge — enough power to stop a black bear — and he rejoiced at the feel of the stock against his inner arm. It wasn’t just any old shotgun, it was a combat shotgun. Benelli. A tiny piece of lightning in his hands.
Without looking back, he asked Felicia, ‘You got me covered?’
She came up behind him and gave his shoulder a squeeze, indicating she was not only there, but on full alert. Striker readied the shotgun and moved forward.
Approaching the house from the front was bad tactics, even under the best of circumstances. To the west, the neighbour’s exterior lights were turned off, and Striker saw no motion detectors. He opted to use the yard as cover. As he led Felicia through it, straddling the fence and searching for dogs, the thought of booby traps filtered through his mind. IEDs — Improvised Explosive Devices — were common with these nut-jobs, starting back with the Columbine kids who had planned on blowing up the entire library.
Because of this, he stopped when they crested Que Wong’s backyard, he turned to face Felicia and whispered, ‘Eyes up for IEDs. Wires. Bottles. Containers — whatever. High and low. Watch every step.’
She nodded. Her face was blank, and her dark eyes were steady, determined. As much as a part of him begrudged her this ability to turn her emotions to ice, he also loved it. She was a rock in the field, always standing next to him when the worst of the shit hit.
That couldn’t be said about all the other cops he’d worked with.
A long hedge of manicured bush, five feet high, separated the two yards. In the rain and darkness, it looked like a solid row of blackness. As Striker flanked the hedge, searching for a break in the bush, a sliver of light found his eyes. It was coming from Que Wong’s backyard.
From the ground.
‘What the hell?’ Striker heard Felicia say.
He reached back and tapped Felicia, then pointed to the lit-up area of grass. Her long hair was wet, sticking to the edges of her face, and she shivered as she nodded. Striker felt the cold, too. The fall wind picked up, whistling through the greenery and blowing the rain into his face.
With Felicia covering his back, he crept along the bush-line until he found a small break in the greenery. It was narrow, but passable. He pressed between the two bushes and took in the full view of the yard.
It was ordinary, small. In the middle, near the house, was a small patio area, complete with a propane barbecue and an outdoor patio table with chairs. At the far end of that, an upright cement birdbath stood, nestled between two rows of barren shrubs. Striker let his eyes roam beyond the shrubs to a pile of old broken cinderblocks by the far fence.
The light was coming from the pile.
Striker made sure Felicia saw it. When she nodded, he moved forward and cleared the rest of the yard, finishing up with the patio. From this new vantage, he could see that the cinder blocks weren’t in a pile, but were arranged in a small square design. And in the very centre of them was a hatch, coming right out of the earth. A square of dirty light spilled out around the edges.
‘Well water?’ Felicia guessed.
He shook his head. ‘Bunker.’
‘Bunker?’
‘An old bomb shelter, I think. Step back. Cover me.’ He dropped down to one knee and studied the door in the earth. It was small, barely two feet by two feet. Only one person could get through that space at a time, and that was if there was a ladder going down, not steps. He took out his flashlight, turned it on, and ran the beam all around the edges of the hatch.